Editorial Cartoon: Where’s The Bowl Beef

New Year’s Bowls Mean Nothing Today
Remember when New Year’s Day was a sacred holiday? I do. In the days before cable, my family would gather in the living room, stack television sets on top of each other, and watch multiple bowl games at once. The match-ups were that good; you wouldn’t dare miss any of them.

In the days before you could buy your way into a game on New Year’s day, getting selected to play on this coveted day meant your program had accomplished something. You had just completed a stellar season, and the world would watch as you battled it out against another program that had accomplished something.

As Archie and Edith used to sing, “Those were the days!”

Now the “after New Year’s” bowl season has become a meaningless hodge-podge of games nobody wants to see. Instead of getting a healthy portion of college football meat and potatoes, we’ve been force-fed cotton candy.

Between the ten bowl games on January 1st and 2nd, six teams with 7-5 records disgrace our television screens, not to mention a 6-6. Like a fat, smelly hog in a tea room, these programs don’t belong in a bowl whose game date doesn’t start with “D”.

The problem is, there are just too many dang bowls. Thirty-four to be exact. Meaning 43 teams not good enough to be in the top twenty-five get to go bowling.

I used to think it funny that the NCAA basketball tournament included 64 teams. For some reason that just seemed like a lot to me. And when they added a 65th in a play-in game, I simply scratched my head. But to put it in perspective, FBS college football now has 68 teams that get invited to bowls. That’s 57% of all teams playing what we would call Division 1 football.

What this over-saturation of “bowl worthy” teams does is simply dilute the purity of the bowl pool, polluting the purity of New Year’s day, and beyond. I mean, is anyone really excited about watching Troy and Central Michigan battle it out in the GMAC bowl on January 6th? And how about that display of personal fouls, no discipline, missed tackles and turnovers in the Outback? Anybody pumped about South Florida v. Northern Illinois today? Or Uconn and South Carolina?

Let’s face it. Bowls are not what they used to be, and unless you’re invited to a BCS bowl, or even better, earn your way into the coveted BCS National Championship game, you’re really just playing an early spring game. And excitement about a meaningless win in a meaningless bowl simply lets the world know where your program is.

9 thoughts on “Capstone Saturdays: Where’s The Bowl Beef?”

  1. Shit guy. It would take the UCONN players to drop dead en mass for those limp Cocks to score.
    Old Ball Coach should had gone to the Tide N’ Tiger at halftime and got drunk.
    I can see this now…..
    “Come and get me when this” Mutha Fuka” is Over ” the Old Ball Coach would shout at the end of the Game.

  2. Viagra on Papa John’s worked finally on those Cocks.
    Somebody needs to pick up Old Ball Coach across the street…..

  3. I can’t deny — I straight up quit watching that International Bowl in Toronto with South Florida — I really wish the four main BCS Bowls were played on New Year’s Day — then according to the calender year — the National played the day after — am I the only one who thinks a Thursday night game 31 + days is too much? Shrug … I may be impatient.

  4. Damage – you are so right. Never have witnessed the level of crappy football experienced this day. Turned off the Sugar at halftime. Didn’t even know the score of the Outback til a couple hours after it was over. Can’t believe I will be forced to root for Trojans on Jan.6 and it won’t be USC. The only game with any meaning this new year will be on Jan 7th, and I don’t know if I’ll survive the hype.

  5. It sucks when after a totally lackluster year in your conference, (where you lose the majority of your games) you have to buy your way into a New Year’s Day Bowl to try to appear relevant.
    And then (what is worse,)After you pay to get in, you get there and play some directional school that no one can locate on a map of the U.S.
    Nothing says “Quality” like having a Front row seat next to a D list celebrity at a 3rd rate production. The punch line is when you pay for the privelige.
    Pardon me now while I laugh at the inane logic involved, because that is some truly grand mal shitheadedness.

  6. Could not agree more ITK. The only reason to even watch these games is because in less than a week we will have NO college football. With that said the prophet has several friends that get pumped by the past time of watching games. They get upset when I say these games are meaningless. Gettin to a bowl game used to mean acheivement. Now you can lose 40 to 50% and say “we are going bowling!”. So? Personally, I consider losing more than 2 or 3 games a year as a failed season. With that said… I will soon be longing for football season again. Maybe watching auburn vs northwestern is better than not watching at all? Maybe?

  7. Watching the Barners give up 35 points and 600+ yards,140 penalty yards and 2 separate 14 point leads(within an eyelash of being the only team to ever have 14-0 leads in their last 3 games and be 0-3)has been the highlight of the bowl season.
    In the final 5 minutes the “best” RB in the State nearly gave the game away twice(celebration penalty and fumble).Their KR fumbled,they had 2 more avoidable major penalties.Their defense could not protect an 8 point lead.A good FG kicker could have beat them twice.
    Barners celebrated a win they had not yet earned twice.Chiznit thinks it counts as 3 wins as he proclaimed postgame that he entered the game with 7 wins and now has 10.Gotta’ love a Barner.
    Aubie has to be the only team in the country to celebrate both “moral victories” and “immoral wins”

  8. Watching Troy will be exciting and it’s sad that a good team like them “doesn’t deserve” a bowl game. It will prepare us for January 7th!

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